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Thursday, 10 September 2009

Spuds

The medieval jousting tournaThe Potato 2009 venue

Doesn't it look fun and well, ehm, even more fun? All those tents are actually up about 5 minutes walk away from where I live and they are for the Potato 2009 event! Every four to five years the town where I live will hold a massive potato related fair. If you have anything to do with farming potatoes on a large scale if you're from abroad or a smaller scale if you're from the Netherlands, chances are you will have heard of Emmeloord!

When I took the photo this morning, the cycle path was hard to cycle on due to all the people not bothering driving to the official parking lots, but parking in the grass on either side of the cycle path. Just so they won't have to wait to get on a (free) bus! However the cars that were there came from a variety of countries: the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and France were only a few I saw.

In 2000 and 2005 they also had massive fairs and people came from as far afield as Russia, Argentina and Canada to come to my small hometown to see what was new in the potato field. The first time was the busiest: it was raining, so Dutch farmers couldn't be bothered to farm and came in droves! At the end of that week, you could grow potatoes in my coach!!! This year, we're not doing the transport side of the fair though. So, no potato-farming in the bus.

This fair is not the only thing organised because of the potato. The Spud-festival started on Tuesday and is going until Sunday. We will have a Fish-Potato run on Saturday (From the fishing village of Urk to the potato village Emmeloord), a cycle tour, free chips/fries/frites/patat on Saturday, a concert and lots of other stuff! I will have to work the whole weekend though and will not be able to see or do anything (and before you ask: no, I wasn't planning on doing the run).

Fact: Belgium created the autumn school break in order for children to help their families with the potato harvest!